About Us

Polaris Travel Clinic and Pharmacy is now open in Airdrie! We are very excited to bring a new and innovative model of practice to patients in the Airdrie and Calgary areas.

Travel clinic and pharmacy? What does that mean?

Polaris is both! Our primary clinical focus is travel health. We do pre-travel health consultations, administer vaccines, dispense travel-related prescriptions, have travel-related over the counter medications, and carry other products relating to travel health such as mosquito bed nets, insect repellents and sunscreen. Polaris has been certified by the Public Health Agency of Canada as a Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre. With these services, it makes sense that we call ourselves a travel clinic.

We are also considered a pharmacy. Jason Kmet, founder of Polaris and its primary travel health practitioner, is a pharmacist. Since Jason is a licensed pharmacist, the clinic is also licensed as a pharmacy by the Alberta College of Pharmacists. A copy of our license is located here. However, Polaris does not look like any pharmacy you’ve seen before.

Our location looks and feels much more like a doctor’s office than a pharmacy. We have a reception area, a waiting room, and private consultation rooms as well as a dispensary area. Our pharmacists usually see patients by appointment. Polaris has a small retail section that stocks travel-related over the counter medications, as well as some specialty travel products.

Our dispensary stocks travel-related prescription medication and vaccines. We usually do not stock non-travel medications and don’t have any narcotics at all. While we are theoretically able to fill any kind of prescription, this isn’t really what we’re about.

Why don’t you act like a typical pharmacy?

Our vision of pharmacy practice is that pharmacists are best used when they are providing clinical services to patients. The goal of Polaris is to create an environment where this happens. We are developing what we think is an innovative model where pharmacists can focus on providing these types of services. By not having a fully stocked dispensary, our pharmacists don’t even have the option to spend a lot of time dispensing and retailing. They don’t have to worry about getting pulled away from patient appointments to attend to their dispensing duties. We are committed to creating a model where clinical services are what we do.

While we are primarily focused on travel health, Polaris also offers non-travel services. An example would include the care plans that many Albertans are eligible to receive annually as part of the new Pharmacy Services Framework. For more information about our non-travel services, click here.

Polaris Travel Clinic and Pharmacy – Pharmacy License #2553Pharmacist Licensee and Proprietor – Jason Kmet #5094
Concerns? View the Patient Concerns poster for more information. The licensee is required to provide, on the request of a patient, the name and practice permit number of any regulated member who provides a pharmacy service to the patient or who engages in the practice of pharmacy with respect to a patient.